


there ain't glory in the silken things

by scarecrowes



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I said everyone who’s drinking is already drunk or sleeping<br/>Everyone who isn’t is just too political to talk to<br/>Another summer evening and the city’s barely breathing<br/>It just ain’t the same, just ain’t the same without you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	there ain't glory in the silken things

The first night they spend together in Havana, they don’t talk much about business.

Of course, it isn’t the first night there for either of them, since Meyer’s been back and forth between Cuba, New York and Florida, and he knows Charlie’s spent every other night with a whore (or two, or three) in his bed. Not that you’d know it from the rooms - he has housekeepers in the mansion on top of the service at the hotel. 

Charlie greets him in that funny way he’s picked up since prison - yanking him close and tight, so he has to shove at the taller man’s ribcage to get him away. 

“Stop that.” Meyer scowls, nose scrunched against the linen of Charlie’s suit, and Charlie’s laugh rumbles against his jaw. 

“Stop bein’ such a baby, Little Meyer.” he admonishes, but he does let go, the hard weight of his arms around Meyer’s back sliding loose til he feels bare. 

It’s much better that way. 

The house is more sprawling than any place his friend had kept in the City, and for whatever reason Charlie has most of the doors open. It’s warm with Havana’s heat and the distant echo from the street outside. Not the same kind of loud as New York (though sometimes the gunfire comes close, late at night) and Meyer isn’t reminded of an empty house on 84th Street, or his own overlooking the Park. 

It’s just Charlie. Right down to the art on the walls that probably reminded him of Rothstein - though if asked he’d just shrug, say  _I thought it was pretty. Why d’you care?_

I don’t, Meyer would say. You do. 

“Here,” Charlie gestures through another opened door, and it’s the study where Charlie probably took most of his phone calls, all mahogany furniture and books Meyer very much doubts he’s ever picked up. 

“I read some of ‘em, you know.” Charlie scowls, and Meyer laughs because they’re doing that again, still, after all this time. 

“Since when can you read, Luck?” Meyer teases, and ducks the swipe Charlie aims for his head. 

“Fuck you.” Charlie snaps, folding his arms in that tense way that prohibits lashing out again. Meyer just rests a hand on his shoulder. 

“Calm down, Charlie. You know I didn’t mean anything.” 

“Yeah, well.” 

The tilt of Charlie’s shoulders says he’s forgiven even if his words don’t, and Meyer finds a chair as his partner sidles over to the bar. 

“You and Anna really splittin’ up?” 

Charlie says it nonchalant the way that Charlie says a lot of things. It sits in Meyer’s stomach like a dead weight. 

“Looks like it.” he replies, tapping a cigarette loose from his case. “I paid for the lawyer and all.” 

“Sorry to hear it.” 

No, you’re not, Meyer wants to say. You’re never sorry for anything. 

“She tried to kill herself, Charlie.” 

The reply is the rattle of ice in the glass his partner sets down in front of him. He doesn’t expect Charlie to say anything. 

But he’s almost wary of looking up. 

“Meyer?”

Charlie’s voice hits him quiet but hits him all the same, hooking under his chin and dragging him until their eyes meet. 

Damn him.

“It’s my fault.” Meyer says, firm and factual and unapologetic, and Charlie perches on the edge of his desk and studies his glass. 

“No, it ain’t.” 

Meyer doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t have to, when Charlie catches the blanch of his knuckles around the arm of his chair, the slight way he shakes his head. Years ago, Charie would have called him up on it. Said,  _you got a problem, little man?_ A lifetime ago he would’ve taken a hit, and he would’ve struck back, all fists and teeth and all the snarling hate that slid out from between his ribs a long time ago. 

Now, he’s just tired. And Charlie stares, cracks ice between his teeth, and waits. 

_Fuck Rothstein for ever teaching this bastard patience._

Charlie refills his drink and locks the door, and doesn’t ask again. Not about Anna, or the kids, not about Benny or Frank. It’ll come later, the same as the rest. 

It always does. 

But for now - for now Charlie’s hand finds his shoulder, and the ring he’s wearing is different than the one he had before, but it’s still Charlie. He’s got a girl’s teeth bruised into his neck and the same cockeyed look that those cops gave him in ’29. He leaves all the doors open. He changed his cologne. 

He’s still Charlie, though. Meyer almost wishes he wasn’t. 

It would make the dead feeling in his chest a little easier to bear. Because Charlie drags it out of him still, even now, with a firm hand slid under the back of his collar and the other passing him a second drink. He fills up the spaces he left behind with how he steals a Parliament from Meyer’s cigarette case and the way he shrugs away the stiffness in his partner’s back at every touch, ignoring the lingering hesitation of  _we can’t be this anymore._

Because nine years that Meyer spent on business and his broken family were nine years Charlie spent behind bars, and Charlie will never admit that anything could possibly move along without him. 

It wasn’t supposed to, anyway. 

And maybe it’s true. Because he ends up with Charlie’s head in his lap, full of liquor and a lazy grin and maybe they can make this work. That with Charlie here it’ll be like it should’ve been in New York. It’ll be like they said it would, moving mountains.

Charlie’s eyes are closed, and he doesn’t catch the lingering thought that Meyer leaves hanging, unsaid.

_Maybe you’ll listen to me this time._

“Hey, Little Meyer.” 

Dark eyes peering up at him half-closed. Meyer smirks.

“Hey yourself, Luciano.” 

There’s a scuffle of movement that makes him jump, and then Charlie’s too close and pushing his mouth against Meyer’s own. 

Startled, Meyer laughs, and he’s silenced when Charlie does it again. Rougher this time, tobacco and whiskey on his tongue and Meyer’s head knocking the back of the chair. 

And then Charlie draws back, and Meyer sighs, trying not to grin against the hand he rubs his mouth with. 

“Just like that, huh, Luck?” he murmurs. 

Charlie nods. 

“Just like that.” 

 


End file.
